


An Ocean of Tears

by Avanalae



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Character Swap, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Heartbreak, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Master of Death Harry Potter, Parent-Child Relationship, Post Mpreg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:00:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26264602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Avanalae/pseuds/Avanalae
Summary: Harry and Tom have a long history together, and a long future ahead of them. There have been so many stumbles and struggles along the way and the future is constantly shadowed in fear and doubt, so is it any wonder that he takes a chance to be purely selfish? To have something of his lost lover to have and to cherish for as long as he stays away? It doesn't really matter, now. What's done is done, and Harry will keep this star as bright as he can for as long as he can, even as life pulls hims as much as the tides of the sea tug at the ships that drift along her waters.He cannot hold onto his regrets. He can only hope, even if it only brings him pain in the future, just as it had in the past.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle | Voldemort
Comments: 7
Kudos: 87





	An Ocean of Tears

**Author's Note:**

> Behold the results of my muse punching me in the head at 2 am the other day.
> 
> Please enjoy.

He hums softly, a melody engraved into his very heart and soul. So soft, almost wistful, he hums and rocks. The old wooden chair still rocks easily, still cradles him well and soothes both him and the one in his arms. Just as it had been intended to do when it was crafted.

He rocks, humming the soothing lullaby to the one in his arms. He gently smooths his hand over soft hair, still just as fluffy and soft as down. He gets a quiet coo from the sleepy child, with the barest flutter of closed eyes. The baby continues to sleep soundly, almost completely unaware of the atmosphere of weariness and gloom. Lost in the land of dreams, only conscious of his carrier’s heartbeat and the familiar humming.

He hums and he rocks, soothing his child as he does every night. Sitting in the rocking chair his lover had crafted so many years ago. Sometimes humming that familiar tune and sometimes singing. Singing soft melodies of wistful love, betrayal, hope, and memories. He doesn’t want to hide anything from this child, but not hiding these things from him means he can no longer hide them away from himself.

But it has been a year, now. A year since the birth of this child in his arms. Perhaps it could have been long ago, perhaps he should have waited, but he could not bear himself to wait any longer. Selfish of him, he is sure, but he is a terribly selfish creature.

He wants and he clings, he takes and takes, giving only when it benefits him. He truly is the worst.

He smiles morosely, bringing one hand up to run his knuckles down the soft cheek of his baby. His only tangible connection to his love aside from the locket. The locket that sits in its ornate box upon the mantle, untouched but for the first time he sat in this chair with the newborn.

The ocean crashes loudly against the cliff his house is perched on. There’s a storm raging outside, turning the sea tumultuous and sending down sheets of rain so thick that the air itself might as well be its own ocean. Lightning flashes and thunder booms, but throughout all of it, his little one doesn’t stir. Calm as can be, dozing against his chest as he continues to hum that lullaby.

He closes his eyes and lets himself dream.

Dream of his days as Harry Potter and the life that came after that name died its last death.

He dreams of _him_.

He dreams of the days when it was just Harry and Tom.

* * *

“Hemlock, my love, what do you have there?”

A young boy of four looks up, big green eyes finding the speaker and shining with the following smile. “Mama!” He dashes over, holding up his prize.

Harry’s laugh stutters with a huff as the boy runs straight into him, but he immediately wraps his arms around the child, lifting him easily into his arms. “Oh, my darling, do be more careful than that.” He kisses chubby cheeks and gets a squirm and a giggle.

“Mama, stop!” the giggles are loud and so, so sweet. “I found this pretty thing!” He holds his find up again and Harry looks. “What is it?”

With a hum, Harry kisses his cheek again, but much more softly. “That, my dearest, is an acorn.”

“Acohn?”

“Acorn, sweetie,” and he slowly pronounces it a few times and the boy quickly get it right. “It’s a seed.”

“A seed? For what?”

Harry carries him over to a nearby oak tree. “It’s a seed for a tree, just like this one.” Hemlock looks up at the large tree with wide eyes and open mouth. They get close enough to touch and Harry takes one of his little one’s smaller hands in his, touching it to the rough tree bark. “When that little seed is planted, it will grow and grow, turning into a tree. And then in many, many years, it will be as big and strong as this one here.”

Hemlock stares at his hand on the trunk, before turning just enough to look at his mother. “Mama, did I come from a seed?”

He doesn’t choke on his own spit, but it’s a near thing. He clears his throat and laughs, “Babies like you come from something like a seed, yes.” The boy scowls at being called a “baby” but it disappears quickly under the assault of more smooches. “I held onto and protected your little seed for a long time, until we both were ready for you to start growing. Now you’re here and it’s up to you to keep growing.” Harry buries his face in dark, wavy hair, hiding his tears under the pretense of kissing the soft strands.

The 4-year-old wraps his arms around Harry’s neck. “Thank you, Mama. I’m gonna grow as big and strong as this tree so I can protect you, too!”

“Oh, my darling,” he presses a wet kiss to his son’s forehead. “You already do so much for me. Take your time to grow, okay? I can wait.”

Hemlock huffs, like the child he is, and complains about wanting to be a grownup _now_.

They end their outing by packing up the picnic supplies and burying the acorn where they had placed their blanket. Harry can’t bless the seed in any way that could help, so he places a little encouragement into the earth, to feed it so it can grow strong and quickly.

They will visit that area many times in the future, and each time the tree will be healthy and large.

* * *

When he feels the waves pull at him, telling of future events, he starts organizing. He plays with Hemlock and smothers him in love, trying to fill his personal reserves of affection for and from his son. They play and he even manages to make a game of fixing up the house and cleaning. It still amazes him how helpful his son can be, especially with the right encouragement.

When the time comes and he can no longer ignore the pull, he puts Hemlock to bed and kisses his forehead as he tucks the 5-year-old in. He tells him his favorite stories until he falls asleep and he kisses his son on his forehead and then between his eyes. His body relaxes fully, and his breath slows even more.

Once he’s fully under the spell, Harry brushes his hair back from his eyes, risking a moment to just take him in. He runs a thumb over developing cheeks, seeing more of Tom in him than ever. He manages to pull himself away at an insistent tug. Pulling up and locking the spell that will keep everything in the home, animate or otherwise, in stasis takes little time. He’d had plenty of time to prepare the wards to include his son in the stasis, knowing that he couldn’t take his beloved Hemlock with him when so young.

And perhaps it’s selfish of him, to want to come back to the same boy. The boy who doesn’t know his mama is leaving and will dream sweet dreams until his mother wakes him up in the morning. To not have to worry about bringing him, leaving him, or any other choice.

It’s terribly selfish.

But he rests his head against the closed door, hand still on the doorknob. The wards are up and set, but it’s so hard to pull himself away. All he sees in his immediate future is pain. Suffering and peril aren’t new to Harry, but he has spent a long while avoiding it. Surrounding himself in the love and brightness of his son.

He steps back, and with one last look, he leaves with a whisper.

“I love you, my little star.”

* * *

Harry quite likes the roguish pirate, Jack Sparrow. Rough yet witty, he has a presence that’s difficult to ignore. His earnest nature and surprisingly kind soul stand out to him, though the man let’s his selfishness run wild to try and hide it.

“Lycoris! You are as radiant as ever, I see!” His hand is quickly grasped, and a lingering kiss is lavished onto the back of it. He can’t help but chuckle.

“Jack Sparrow. It has been a long time.”

“And you have only grown more radiant in the meantime,” Jack says sincerely.

Harry laughs out loud, “Oh Jack, what mess have you gotten yourself into this time?”

* * *

He doesn’t look exactly like himself around mortals. He likes to separate himself from, well, himself, when he is among the masses. He has a firm reputation as a witch of some sort, but one that no one dares to mess with. He comes and goes like the tides, but those who need him will always find him.

His disguise is rather simple, to be honest. His darkens his skin to look more sun-kissed, and lengthens his hair, usually keeping it in a loose braid. He wears an odd mix of clothing, adding to his ambiguous appearance, making his gender hard to pin down. This usually leads to people making assumptions, which is part of the purpose. People more easily dismiss him, especially when they assume that he's a woman. Gender doesn’t mean much to him anyway, it wouldn’t matter much to anyone if you had male genitalia and yet gave birth to your own child. But he’s always been a bit odd.

He can read people easily, though, and often can tell what people are thinking, especially of him, with just a glance. Many people, especially men, disgust him. Jack, however, doesn’t think much about his gender, but has a healthy respect for him along with being a bit smitten. It’s cute.

If his heart weren’t already so filled with others, maybe he would be willing to bring Jack further in. As it is, however, Harry can’t bring himself to do so. He can’t reject him outright, but Jack knows he’ll only get so much.

And the selfishly kind man accepts what he can manage to take.

* * *

He was right when it came to this adventure, seeing only heartache and pain.

As he sits in this cell, thrown in by the command of the idiot Barbossa, he holds the locket. He doesn’t want to acknowledge why he brought it with him. His sits and runs his thumb over the face engraved on the lid. He knows every nuance of this pendant, having held it in this same manner many times before. If it weren’t so protected, he imagines those details would have been worn away by his touch a long time ago.

Something in him compels him to open it, and finally he does. He closes his eyes and listens, as those familiar plinking notes form that familiar melody. His heart can’t take it too long, however, and he soon closes it.

Only for the tune to continue.

His heart stutters as his swallows his gasp. His wide eyes stare at the wall, hesitant and scared to turn around for a whole host of reasons. The taps of odd feet approach the bars of his cell.

“Not even going to look at me, Harry?”

Harry’s laugh is more of a rasp, caught in his throat and trying to claw its way out. He turns slowly, holding his locket close to his chest.

“Tom,” he breathes, heart fluttering in his chest even as his takes in the monstrous appearance of his old love. His one love, aside from his son.

He grunts, the tentacles on his face twitching, “It's Davy Jones, now.”

“Ah,” Harry smiles crookedly, “Then I’m just Lycoris.”

Tom pauses, takes him in before speaking again. “Spider lily. How… appropriate.”

The crooked smile stays, “You know me, I like my secret double meanings.”

His lips twitch into a frown, “Do I know you?” Harry’s heart sinks, realizing where this conversation is going to go. “I thought I did, once. You promised me you would always meet me and stay by my side when I could step onto shore.”

Harry closes his eyes.

“You came but left before dawn. Then the next time I could return, I waited. I waited until I could not stay any longer and what happened?” Tom’s gaze is penetrating and angry. “You never came!” The locket in his hand clicks shut sharply.

Harry breathes a moment and smiles while trying to hold back the tears. “I’m not one to break promises without a reason, Tom, you should know that.”

“Then why have I not seen you since? Why have you not made these ‘reasons' clear to me?” He tucks the locket away in a pocket angrily, but the fact that he keeps it gives him some hope, if only a low burn of it deep in his heart.

Harry steps forward, holding his once-lover's gaze. “Would you have listened to me, Tom? You’ve always been such a wrathful and selfish creature. Can you not forgive me for doubting that you would listen to me, let alone accept my answers?”

Tom scowls more fiercely.

“I may have loved you with all my heart, but I’ve never been stupid, Tom. No matter what you thought.” Harry reaches through the bars and rests a hand over where his heart would be if it were still there. “There’s a reason you were bound by your heart, Tom. Because I knew that you would have destroyed it at a moment’s notice when given the chance.”

“I’ve never needed a heart,” Tom growls.

“No,” Harry whispers sadly, staring into those dark, angry eyes, “You have always thought that, and it just shows what you haven’t learned despite so many years together.”

Tom grabs his wrist with a claw-like hand and hisses, “What would you know about such things? You were always so blinded by your own heart; how could I ever want such weakness.”

Harry doesn’t wince at the tight grip and feels his expression soften more, his body going lax in his sadness. “You didn’t think that way, a long time ago.”

Tom phases through the bars in an instant, pushing and pinning harry against the wall of the ship. He growls lowly, bringing their faces close, “The past is the past, _Lycoris_. How could I return to such foolishness after your betrayal?”

The first tear crests and falls from his eye. His reasons may just be excuses. There truly was no reason for him to not return, even at sea, to explain. But he was scared.

“It was stupid of me, Tom, to stay away. I know this.”

“Then _WHY_?”

The tears start falling steadily, now. And Harry smiles wobbly. “I was carrying something that I couldn’t risk with your wrath.”

He couldn’t risk their child.

Tom’s face wrinkles in confusion and then frustration when Harry doesn’t elaborate. He pins the smaller man harder against the wall for a moment before pushing himself away with a sound of fury.

“Keep your secrets, then! Take them to your grave. Except,” he finishes cruelly, “you won’t even get that, will you, _Calypso_?”

He spits the name he knows Harry resigned himself to long ago, humans like to name what they don’t understand, after all. Harry doesn’t blink until the man-turned-monster disappears, only lasting a moment after before he falls to his knees. He wraps his arms around himself and curls forward, letting the sobs overtake him for a long time.

* * *

The bindings those pirates had placed on him so long ago never really worked the way that they had intended. But he played along easily, thinking it was the binding that had kept the ocean from consuming them all.

After all, the ocean is fathomless, and death cannot be bound.

Harry is the ocean.

Harry is _death_.

There is beauty in both, he likes to think, regardless of all the naysayers.

But he plays along and helps the pirates by taking down the flagship, Endeavor. He has always had a soft spot for the pirates, even beyond Captain Jack Sparrow. Because death is not good or evil. It just is, and without those morals that plagued him as a human, he can appreciate them more.

Though injustice and abuse still rile him into rage easily.

He watches the ship sink. He watches the pirates cheer as the armada flees and when they all disperse afterwards. He watches until the churning of the tides calm.

It’s time to go home.

* * *

He stopped by frequently, though he never did much more than linger when he did come. But now he takes down the wards and enters his home. He starts switching the stasis, starting everything up once again, though Hemlock would take time to rouse. He did it this way to have his little one adjust properly as he woke as well as to give him some time to sit or putter around the house, trying to ground himself.

It takes what feels like forever, but eventually everything he took is back in its place and he starts some tea. He wonders about breakfast and decides to go all out.

He goes to his sweet star when he feels him finally start to wake and kisses his forehead to rouse him further. “Good morning, my love.”

Hemlock hums sleepily and raises his arms. Harry chuckles and obliges, lifting the boy from the bed. He leaves the room without making him change, making the boy blink more awake in his confusion.

“Mama?”

Harry kisses his baby's temple, “Today is going to be a happy day, love. Is that alright?”

The boy perks up a bit, realizing what this means, “Yes! Thank you, mum!” he smacks a big kiss to Harry’s cheek, making the both of them laugh.

“Well then, my star, why don’t you think about what we can do today while we eat?”

“Yup!”

* * *

Harry blinks when he feels something approaching. He is sitting against the apple tree by their house, Hemlock napping with his head on his mother’s lap. He hasn’t been able to bring himself to even let Hemlock stray too far from his hold the past couple of days. He’s sure his darling is going to start complaining about it soon. He’s already getting wiggly more quickly when he’s holding him.

He continues to pet his son’s soft hair, gazing into the distance. There’s only one easy way to approach their home, and though there is only one other who knows of this place, it’s likely that it’s some wanderer who is very, very lost.

Tom had stopped coming a long, long time ago, after all.

And now he’s dead.

He looks down at Hemlock, his last connection to the man he loved for so long. His shining star in the darkness that is his life. He knows that he will only continue to grow into his features, a mix of the two of them. Tom’s cheekbones and nose, his own eyes and smile. It will be hard, but he’s sure it won’t be an issue.

He starts to hear footsteps along the dirt road that leads up the hill to the house. There is a grove of trees blocking his view of them, but he doesn’t feel any concern. There’s no sense of hostility or evil, so there’s no point in getting defensive right away.

They are still a few minutes’ walk away when they come out of the trees, but Harry can see him clearly. But he’s not sure if he’s seeing right. The silhouette is so familiar; broad shoulders and a trim waist leading into slim hips, soft waves of dark brown curling around his ears and neck, and hands… He isn’t holding anything. He holds no pack or supplies. The only thing he wears is a loose white tunic and pants and nothing else.

Harry swallows sharply but does nothing more than rest a gentle hand on Hemlock’s head.

There is only the sound of the breeze through the trees and the soft crashes of the sea against the cliff behind the house. Several minutes that feel like several hours pass before the man comes to a stop a meter or two in front of him.

They stare at each other, Harry taking in those deep hazel eyes he thought long lost to him. The red overtaking his eyes had been the beginning of his change into Davy Jones, something that had reminded him vividly of the past.

His smile is wobbly, as if his cheeks don’t want to cooperate, “Hello, Tom.”

Tom blinks slowly, his gaze focusing out of the daze he had been staring at Harry with. “…Harry,” his voice is low, barely a mutter. He blinks a few more times and his eyes are drawn down by the movement of Harry’s hand. He watches him pet the soft hair of the child resting on his lap. He watches the tall man take in the boy, examining his features. He sees when the realization hits him, looks straight into the startled eyes of his old love.

Harry’s smile feels a bit sturdier this time, “Would you like to sit?” He pats the grass next to him, the side not taken up by his little boy. Sluggishly, from shock or other unknown reasons, Tom manages to sit. He leans back against the tree and stares up at the rustling leaves against the sky.

He gives him all the time he needs, continuing to soothe the sleeping child with his petting.

Another, larger hand slides closer to his own, their pinky fingers barely touching. Harry feel his expression turn even softer. He entwines their pinkies, not sure if either of them is ready for much more than that.

He doesn’t know what or why or how.

But he finds that it doesn’t matter. Not right now.

He starts to hum that long-familiar melody, the tune lifting his heart instead of pulling it down for the first time in many, lonely years.


End file.
